


The Vicious Cycle Of Lives

by Leocante



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Angst with a Happy Ending, Assisted Suicide, Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, Drake is mentioned, F/M, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Mentioned Baltimore (All For The Game), POV Andrew Minyard, Reincarnation, Sacrifice, Soulmates, andrew chokes kevin, it's a reincarnation au they gotta die a little, multiple character deaths
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-14
Updated: 2020-12-14
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:00:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28075842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leocante/pseuds/Leocante
Summary: Andrew couldn't save Abram. Not the first time they've met, nor the second time or the third, not any life after that. It was just like that - a universal truth. Andrew could never save Abram, and Abram never remembered his lives.
Relationships: Aaron Minyard & Andrew Minyard, Katelyn/Aaron Minyard, Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Comments: 15
Kudos: 118





	The Vicious Cycle Of Lives

**Author's Note:**

> Read the tags! 
> 
> This is like 7k words that I spitted out in Word while procrastinating, don't expect some genious plot in here for there is none.

Andrew couldn't save Abram. Not the first time they've met, nor the second time or the third, not any life after that. Forced suicide in the ancient Greece. Caught in the Great Fire of Rome. Executed for a treason. The fucking plague. Burned alive for witchcraft. Executed once more during the French Revolution.

Abram's smart mouth was always getting him into troubles, but it was Andrew who payed the price at the end of the day. 

_Forget about him._ That's what Aaron said when Abram died in World War I., crashing his fighter jet in a risky maneuverer, bringing the other plane down with him. He saved the ground support that day. Andrew was the one in charge of the pilots in air.

_He's only breaking your heart._ Said Aaron after Abram helped hundreds of Jews across the border during the Holocaust. They were living in Germany that life, hiding their relationship, only barely surviving but surviving, nevertheless. They had a cat. Andrew said he didn't have a heart to begin with, but they both knew it wasn't quite true.

_You deserve better._ Aaron said, and it sounded like Andrew deserved Abram in the first place. 

The world was a cruel place and Andrew remembered all the lives he'd lived through during the centuries. He remembered all of the ones he shared with Abram and those he didn't, he spent looking for impossible blue eyes in the crowd. 

And when he found them, when he managed to find Abram once more, he had to start from the beginning, like before, like always. Abram didn't remember his past, he didn't remember their lives were intertwined, he didn't remember anything, but he swore the same oath every time. 

_I will stay, Andrés._

_I want to stay with you, Andreas._

_André, I'm staying. If you like it or not._

Abram's lives were never too long. Maybe that was why he didn't remember them – he didn't outlive his twenties most of the time. He had a death wish and Andrew couldn't save him, he couldn't save him, the same he couldn't save himself from falling, falling hard every time. Abram was a pipe dream and Andrew was intoxicated by him, addicted. Delusional. 

It always boiled down to the same point.

"Andreas, I'm not going to kill you," said Aron, for the eight time. "We're twenty, we found Nicolas, and Germany is quite alright this time."

"I don't care." 

"He died, Andreas. We are alive. You don't even know if you'll find him in the next life." 

"He was seventeen," said Andreas, like it explained anything. "I might not find him in the next life, but I sure as fuck can't find him here." 

The unspoken 'anymore' hang between them like a weight they both carried on their backs. 

"If you won't, I'll do it myself," Andreas stated calmly. 

"You won't. You know what happened last time when I got killed two years before you." 

Andreas did remember. They were identical twins, their birth heavily depended on each other's deaths. They were born together, and they died together, one following the other willingly, out of fear of the unknown, of the empty.

Always; with a few exceptions. Their first lives. The year 1560, when Andreas died in prison. The year 1917 when they were separated by a battle and Aron was shot.

The consequences weren't worth it – they were still born together but got estranged by the circumstances. 

"I don't care," he said again, and he meant it. 

"Die, then," Aron exclaimed. "I'm not helping you to find your 'soulmate' or whatever."

Andreas glared at him and it quickly became a staring contest. One that he planned on winning. 

"You're obsessed," said Aron with a glare. "You're trailing after him like a dog for three centuries." 

Almost three centuries and they've met grand total of 21 times. The blue, blue eyes appearing just when he started to think they were never going to meet. And when they met and talked and _loved_ , then he had to lose him again. 

He remained silent with the patience of the knowledgeable; Aron was going to agree with time, he always did. 

Aron folded his arms over his chest in a fighting stance and it was the first time, the first time he looked ready to stand his own ground and Andreas wanted to scream. It was not the time or the place to find his spine, when so much more important things were in stake. 

"I've met Katrin again," he said with hesitance and fire, and it made sense. It all made sense now. 

Andreas never hated him so much as in this moment. He couldn't go without his twin and he couldn't stay with his twin and his Katrin, Kathlyn, Catherine. 

He had to go. There wasn't place for him in this timeline, not next to his brother's happiness while his own died before turning twenty yet again. 

Stupid Abram with his stupid mouth and stupid martyr complex. 

There must've been something showing on his face, because Aron's expression changed to one even more determined than before. 

"She remembers?" he asked, and it was pointless, the answer was right in front of him, burning bright within Aron. 

"Not her lives. Just me." 

It was not fair, it was never fair, but Andreas couldn't hold it against his twin. If Abram remembered anything, something, he would've wanted to stay for the rest of his existence, until the sun died and took them all with itself. 

But Andreas didn't need the sun to burn out, he was already made of ice and so damn tired of waiting and falling and losing over and over again. 

He couldn't forget the world, not even for a moment and he was so goddamn tired of surviving.

"Kill me," he said, perhaps too softly, in a tone that he never used, and Aron looked at him like he never saw him before, like he understood for the first time. 

Andreas killed him before. In France, many, many years ago, when they were Andrés and Aaron, Aaron was taken away by guards for crimes he didn't commit. Andrés took a knife and slit his throat, the blood covering everything in sight until he could only see red, red, red colour on his hands. 

Aaron never thanked him. Andrés didn't expect his gratefulness. 

He was taken by the guards, arrested for murder and died an hour later. Torture was never fun.

"No. I don't know how long this life will take," said Aron, and Andreas could hear clearly the message, the concern, under the otherwise neutral words.

_What happens to you in the meantime? What happens in our next life?_

Andreas didn't care.

"Better make it count." 

He handed him a knife, that on he carried close to his skin with steady hand. Aron took it, thoughtful as always. 

"Are you sure?" he asked, he asked because he cared, hesitation written all over his face. 

He cared and Andreas had just about enough of this theatre, he wanted to retire early this time. And if that meant going without Aron, it couldn't have been changed. He wouldn't have it any other way.

"I want it to be you," he said, hyperaware of the fact that he used the word _want_ for the first time for what seemed to be thousands and thousands of years. 

Aron's startled look betrayed that he knew that too. He examined the blade with head bowed, testing how sharp it was. He was a doctor most of his lives and soldier for the rest – he knew how to kill people. He knew how to kill quickly; it was written on his face. 

"I don't want to do it."

"I'll jump from a roof if you won't. You decide."

Aron looked at the blade again, at his steady hands and the waiting was killing Andreas more than if the blade slit his throat wide and clean, like what he did to Aron in France. 

"You sure." 

And it was not a question, but Andreas nodded stiffly and the next thing he knew was the sharp pain in his frozen heart and then – 

Nothing.

* * *

He was five years old when he remembered his twin. In some sense he knew something was horrendously wrong a long time, but he was five when he could point a finger at it. 

It came in the form of feelings and pictures more than in specific thoughts, but Aron wasn't here, they weren't together, and somehow it felt like a punishment for his assisted suicide. 

He didn't know how long it took for Aron to die, he didn't know how long he was nor here nor there, he didn't know what happened. 

He just knew that his new family was rotten and poisoned at the roots, and he knew it even more when his seventh birthday came. 

He was Andrew now. He was speaking English. It was the year 1993. 

He was changing homes quickly, never in one place for too long and no sight of Aron, no nothing about him. 

Aron got to live with Katrin 22 years. 

They were separated for 22 years, Andrew dead, Aron happy, and now they were separated still. 

The homes were bad. All horrible, all painful to remember, all even worse for the fact that he was alone, this time for good.

No Aron. No Abram. 

Only shitty homes with shitty parents; until Cass. 

Cass was the first who gave him home, one which felt like it. But he knew by now that this life was from all his life the worst one yet, in some ways worse than the slavery in South America, worse than the scent of war and blood and rotten bodies from wars. Or maybe it was too long ago, maybe he was too young. 

It was Drake who changed the pure idea of home to something dark and twisted, and he tried to outlast him, he really did.

There were nights when he sat in the bathtub with a knife to his wrist, and prayed for this life to end, but somehow, he couldn't bring himself to do it properly. At the end of the day, he was just a coward.

Not afraid of death, not that. Afraid of leaving his brother somewhere in this dark, dark world. 

Cass showed him adoption papers and Drake was supposed to go away soon, so he only had to survive, outlive it, wait. 

That was when the letter came. From Aaron. 

The good thing was that they were in the same timeline, that they were born together again, like so many times before, their vicious czcle wasn't broken. The bad thing, the bad thing was Drake, finding the letter and deciding he would love to meet Andrew's identical twin, and Andrew couldn't have that, couldn't afford to bring Aaron into his personal hell. 

He sent back a sound 'Fuck you', lit a police car on fire and went to juvie. It wasn't his brightest moment, but at least he knew Aaron was safe and alive. 

Andrew half hoped he would find Abram in juvie, but he encountered only despair and damnation. 

One day Nicky came, loud and cheery and colourful on the outside, but his soul older than it was meant to be, older than Andrew's and Aaron's. He carried a special kind of positivity with himself, the one that only comes from surviving the Dark Age, the one Andrew was afraid to blunt and put out if he wasn't careful enough. 

There was Aaron, trailing after Nicky, looking exactly like him, the years without seeing each other not able to smudge their connection, but with bruises on his face and arms, where Andrew wore thin scars under the black armbands. 

They didn't talk about their previous life. Andrew didn't ask if Aron was happy, if he died in peace, and Aaron didn't tell.

He took care of Tilda and they ended up with Nicky as their legal patron, with his old, old soul, that forgot most of his lives, but remembered Erik, a man that was waiting for him all the way in Germany. 

They've never talked about it, but Aaron felt bad about keeping Nicky from him, and Andrew felt the same. He almost killed the jerks that took on Nicky, bringing more evil in their already miserable lives.

* * *

The medication wasn't that bad. It made him forget for the most parts, forget about Drake and the Great Fire of Rome. It was almost nice. 

They signed with the Foxes, securing a future once more and Andrew wanted to laugh into the face of the tasteless gods that made him think he ever had a future in the first place. 

The team was awful, misplaced group of bad people, most of them filthy with the taint of their past lives, but only Renee remembered everything, like him. 

Aaron found Katelyn and pointedly didn't as much as looked at her, probably out of misplaced sense of responsibility, and Andrew thought it wasn't fair that he gets to meet her again, when he couldn't find Abram's blue eyes anywhere in this life, anywhere on this school. 

Kevin Day didn't need to remember his past to know life was horrible, judging from his present. He was a first incarnation, but already a corpse of a broken man. It almost distracted Andrew from his own misfortunes, trying to patch him back into a human shape, to give him something else to remember in case he was born once again and carried all the weight from this life on his chest.

It gave Andrew something – someone – to protect, but it was a weak attempt, weak to think he could replace Abram, stuff the hole inside his chest, with someone else, when it was unmistakeably an Abram-shaped hole. 

Betsy helped. She was an old soul, perhaps as old as Nicky, kind where he was cheerful, possessing the wisdom that came only with that age. She never told him if she remembers, but he supposed she did. 

They lived like that, for some time. Their existence wasn't happy, not by any means, but it wasn't as dark and hopeless as he thought before. It was almost bearable.  
Until Neil Josten ran right into his racquet, stumbling on the ground with all the grace of bag of potatoes, disarranging all of Andrew's thoughts in a blur, making him hate the medication for the first time. 

He didn't know at first. There was something odd about Neil Josten and he couldn't tell with the drugs in his system, he couldn't tell for sure with the alcohol and cracker dust, but he felt something shift in the word. 

Neil's eyes were brown, not that electrifying blue, not the blue he was looking for. 

He was disarrayed, shook to his core, and maybe it was just a hallucination, a side effect of the drugs because his heart felt like it started beating for the first time in years. 

It wasn't Abram, Abraam, Avram, it was Neil, Neil with brown eyes and hidden scars. Something about him was familiar, something about him was fake, something about him was dangerous, so dangerous he noticed it on the first look. 

The aura he wore, the death sentence hanging above his head spoke volumes about his past life, and it wasn't a happy one – his soul was old and bruised. He was a threat, but Andrew was addicted to hurting, and captivated by Neil's sole presence.

The truth was in the fine details.

Neil was wearing fashion contacts and it was visible when the sun shone right into his eyes and the rim was right there, almost offensively noticeable, painfully reminding Andrew that even if those eyes were blue, even if it was him, it wouldn't change anything.

Abram never remembered his past lives and Andrew was never able to save him. 

Eden's Twilight came and Neil's eyes were blue, blue, blue, the colour with which artists always drew ice, and they were confused and frightened, but carrying that inner light shining straight from his soul. It were the lives of an old soul, soul that lived every life like it was it's first, after all. 

A soul whose damage he knew intimately.

Aaron shook his head and made himself scarce without a word, the humour not lost on him. 

They drugged Neil, and medicated Andrew thought it would be funny, thought it would be helpful, but it only hurt to see those eyes without defences, to watch in the crowded club how Neil, how Abram pays some asshole to knock him out. It was typical, so typical for him.

Getting attached was never the plan, but always the outcome. 

They lost Neil immediately the next day and Andrew's new dose could penetrate only the feeling of distant disappointment; that they didn't have more time, that they had never had more time. 

Neil appeared again. Unhurt and uninjured, with contact lenses safely back in their place, but Andrew now knew who was hiding behind them, what kind of martyr was alive and burning, burning with passion and hatred and life. 

It didn't take long for his usual promise to be said, and this time it was only more sincere than before, the _I'm not going to run anymore_ ringing loud and clear. It was only the realization that that was what always killed Abram in the end, the promise to stay, not to run, and Andrew felt selfish. 

Aaron addressed him pitying looks, and they weren't talking much these days anyway. It was rare to have both of their soulmates in one place in the same life – they could talk together later. 

Neil's idea of 'stop running' was antagonizing Riko on live television and it was so much Abram it hurt, hurt right beside the other memories of Abram running his mouth. In the Greek Forum, on several demonstrations; always the voice of the people, sassy and aiming right for the head, right where it hurt the most. 

It got him killed countless times and Andrew knew deep in his heart it was going to kill him in this life too.

* * *

They started winning the games. 

It was noticeably easier work with Seth dead and with Neil there to glue the team together like they were broken pieces of a forgotten and unwanted puzzle. It was captivating to watch him manipulate with all of them until they pointed into the direction he wanted; Andrew not being an exception.

Wymack kept sending him curious looks, and Andrew did his best to ignore them. Wymack knew too much despite not being one of the members of the merry remembrance club. 

This life was a rollercoaster of everything, like always when Abram had the power to change the odds for boring, peaceful life to exciting, dangerous continuity of death wishes and near-misses. But still, there was something distinctly different about Abram this time, his name wasn't any variety of Abram; it was Neil, Neil, Neil a liar. The name was fake, like the colour of his eyes, like the colour of his hair, but he wanted to be Neil so desperately it became hard to think about him as Abram, as his. 

Neil managed to put a leash on him, and Andrew couldn't even fight back, because Neil was 18 years old and that meant he was bound to die soon, because their time was limited. There was always some kind of deadline, the clock ticking in the back of Andrew's mind. 

Andrew clung to Abram's existence in this life just as desperately as Abram clung to Neil.

Aaron kept shooting him disapproving glances, and Andrew knew he was self-destructive, that it was bound to end in hellfire once again, but he couldn't bring himself to care. 

It backfired so grandiosely Andrew could only laugh in the face of danger, face to face with Drake, skin on skin. It was funny in the way train crashes were funny, and the drugs in his system didn't let him fight back, didn't let him do anything to stop what was happening. Someone else stopped it for him.

* * *

Drake was dead. 

It should've felt like a victory, but it only bloodied Aaron's hands, more than they were, anyway. They killed and healed all the same. Andrew wondered if it felt the same at this point. 

Bee wanted to take him away, take him off the meds, the ones he didn't mind at the start, the ones he grew to hate with startling ferocity. 

But he couldn't leave Kevin behind him, he couldn't let the promise he made go to waste, so he fought against it, with all he had – until he didn't. 

Because Neil fought back just as vigorously, pressing where it hurt, and at the end, at the end he leaned to Andrew and whispered. 

_If you need something to trust, don't trust Neil, trust me._

_Trust Abram._

Abram, Abram, Abram. It was him and Andrew's retorts died right on his tongue – there was nothing to say to the truth that Neil gave away, nothing to say in the face of the eternal truth of his being. 

He said it with the expression of a man that lowered his defences to whisper the most guarded secret he could ever say, like he knew what that name meant; Andrew allowed himself to hope for the first time in many, many years. 

He couldn't fight with all he had against the man that was all he had.

He went to the Easthaven and came back sober. 

Six weeks away and it felt like an eternity, it felt like centuries in the face of Neil's new appearance, his unguarded blue eyes. His number four. The martyr he knew was there all the time, running not away, but right into the danger, like always. 

Andrew was supposed to protect him, but it looked like Abram was the one keeping him safe.

It hurt to think about it in this way.

* * *

_That doesn't mean I wouldn't blow you_ he said, before he could think about it, before he could stop his stupid mouth, and they were talking in German. It hurt.

It was a glimpse of the old life, the one with the cat and a the house. 

_You like me._ Said Neil, his expression full of wonder. 

Andrew didn't like him. He needed him like drowning man needed oxygen, and he hated him for, hated him with all his being, hated him for not remembering anything. 

He was again at the beginning, starting a relationship that had the power to kill him, to split his newly grown heart again and again, and Andrew couldn't resist. 

_Yes or no?_

_Yes._

He forgot how it felt, forgot that touch wasn't meant to hurt at the beginning, forgot that Abram's lips were soft against his. He was lost in the sensation, in the beauty of ephemerality.

* * *

Neil said he wanted to end the deal that kept them together, like the deal that kept Kevin sane and Andrew really should've seen it coming, but he was blinded, blinded by choice. 

Aaron tried to talk sense into him, he always did. 

_He's going to fly too close to the sun one day._ He said and he was right, because Abram burned bright and went away with an explosion.

_What will you do then?_

Andrew knew the answer.

_Go after him._

They got into a fight. It wasn't the first or the last, but definitely the ugliest by far – and Andrew knew Aaron was only trying to protect him from himself, but he couldn't afford to lose whatever he had with Neil. He tried to tell himself it was nothing, just a fleeting reality, bound by the fate to end soon, but he was failing and falling at the same time.

He had Abram, Aaron had Katelyn, they weren't talking, there wasn't anything to talk about. 

Abram came with expiration date and Andrew knew it was coming from the day the raven's blood flooded their locker room and Neil's birthday present was written on the mirror. 

He knew it was coming, but he didn't know from which side. And Neil, Nathaniel, Abram, called off the deal.

* * *

_Thank you, you were amazing._

Those words kept ringing in Andrew's head long after they were said, and they sounded like a goodbye, like finality. 

He didn't let himself focus on the fact that he lost Neil in the fighting crowd, grabbed Kevin and Aaron tightly, aimed for the bus. 

He didn't see the elbow before he felt it, striking right under his eye, but he didn't let go of his twin, nor of Kevin. He promised, he promised to keep them safe, and Neil wasn't his to protect. Not anymore.

After all, Andrew could never save Abram.

When they boarded the bus, everyone, everyone except Neil, was already there – Renee with bruised knuckles, Matt and Dan looking like they went through all seven rings of hell, Allison with wild expression on her face. The number of bruises between them was immerse, and Abby was already doing her job.

No sign of Neil, not a message, no anything. Andrew knew the turning point was right here, that the promise to stay killed Abram once more. He called Neil's number more times than he could count, bit it kept ringing with that obnoxious sound of bad news. 

Wymack called to every hospital in the area. 

Without answer. 

There wasn't much to do on the bus, only wallowing in self-hatred, and when Andrew made his way to Wymack, he couldn't be stopped. 

"I'm going to look for him," he said and didn't take no as an answer. Aaron shot him a helpless look and Andrew knew he was thinking about the possibility of Abram being dead already. He was 18 years old – past his usual age. 

Wymack kept his mouth shut but opened the doors for him, and Andrew collected all his strength just to keep walking, to keep functioning; mechanically. There was still a possibility, although small, of Neil being alive. He never had his phone charged, after all. 

Andrew ignored the cops, the red and blue lights, he ignored everyone and everything in his way. The spark of hope was flickering in his chest, his heart breaking around the old sews that held it together. 

When he found the obnoxiously orange duffel with Neil's name and number, it was almost like looking at the prove that Abram was gone, gone, gone. Yet the spark refused to burn out, because Neil's phone was right there, together with the keys he gave him, and he wouldn't go anywhere without them, he wouldn't separate himself from them. 

Whenever he went, he didn't go willingly.

Andrew took the duffel, its weight over his shoulder familiar, like the weight he carried on his chest in the eternity of his lives. He made it to the bus and Wymack's expression was telling, the phone in his hand gripped tight and stubbornly silent. 

There was a multitude of messages in Neil's phone. Most of them from Foxes, from Wymack, from Abby. But there was one phone call from unknown number, a call that happened only few minutes before the mess outside, and there was a message from another anonymous. 

0.

It heavily hinted that there had to be 1 before that and 2 before that, and it hurt, it hurt Andrew to the bone, because Neil never said anything, he didn't mention it between the cigarettes and the kisses, between the truths. Now he was gone. 

_Thank you, you were amazing_ and the threatening _0_ , that came earlier that day.

It was a goodbye. 

Andrew couldn't save Abram, no matter what timeline they were a part of.

* * *

Wymack's phone ringed in the dead silence that settled over Foxes sometime during the first hour and continued determinately. They weren't going to go anywhere until they got Neil back and Andrew wanted to smash something, facing their misplaced loyalty to someone bound to die so young. 

But Wymack's phone ringed and all the eyes were on him when his expression changed from tired to alert, when he listened intently and answered with a short Yes.  
Andrew kept his eyes on the world outside the window. There was no point expecting a miracle from someone dead. 

"They found Neil," said Wymack, and it was like someone sucked all the air from the bus, like everyone collectively held their breath. "He's in Baltimore." 

Baltimore. There was no point for him to be in Baltimore, and yet; Kevin paled like he saw death on his own eyes, and it was crystal clear, it was obvious he knew something they didn't. 

"Is he alive?" 

Aaron was asking the question, his voice lacking any emotions. Andrew was silently grateful he didn't have to ask it for himself. 

It took too long for Wymack to answer and Andrew dreaded the answer, like it would change the meaning. He didn't need to hear his thoughts confirmed. 

"Yes. He's in a hospital, but he's alive." 

He was alive, he was alive, he was alive. One miracle from the dying man.

It was all that mattered, but Andrew couldn't hope, not yet. Not until he saw him on his own eyes. 

The stubborn spark in his chest refused to collaborate.

"Then what are we waiting for?" asked Dan, expression hardened by determination.

What were they waiting for? Why wasn't the bus in a motion yet, why was Wymack standing still, like there was storm raging, and he got caught up in the middle.

"I don't know what we are going into, but I don't want to lie to you," he said, and it was wrong, something was wrong with the world, after all. Andrew sat, not daring to breath too loudly, trying to stop his racing heart. "It was Special Agent Browning." 

Andrew didn't have the power to be surprised by Abram's shit, not anymore. Aaron, apparently, was still getting used to it. 

"Special Agent." He said, exasperated. 

"Neil's officially detained for interrogation. It's classified."

He let the words sink. 

"If you're not prepared to fight for him, get your ass out of this bus. Right now." 

Nobody moved. They were frozen to their seats, nobody so much as blinked, only Kevin trembled, trembled vigorously, one seat before Andrew. But even he stayed still. 

"Good." 

Andrew acted as soon as the bus got into motion, he acted before he knew it. 

Kevin's wide eyes, Kevin's pale face, his fear was giving him away, and Andrew knew there was something to tell, something 'classified', that Kevin knew, but Wymack didn't have the right to. 

Neil's connection with Moriyamas was there, lurking under all the lies he'd told, deeper than the runaway he was, deeper than the number four or the striker he became.

Moriyamas were somewhere in the centre of his core and Riko knew, Jean knew, Kevin, Kevin knew too. 

His hand found its way to Kevin's throat, unprompted, but not accidental, and he squeezed with a force that he knew too well. There were people shouting his name, and it was Andrew in this life, and he didn't care about them, he didn't care. 

"What do you know." He asked, but it transformed into an order halfway, losing the question mark and every bit of an intonation. He sounded like a robot, a mechanical being, and it would be so much more easier to be lifeless creature, made of wires and batteries. 

He wasn't. And Kevin was neither, his eyes wide, but still shaking his head, afraid, frightened, panic-stricken. It didn't matter. It was Kevin's first life, he should've learnt by now that lives were painful, dangerous and full of things that weren't worth remembering. 

His face redded and started to turn blue, but the coward in him, the traitor, the Raven, wouldn't accept the defeat, and he was still shaking his head. 

"I can't," he choked out, sounding as strangled as he was. He tried to get inside his lungs another dose of oxygen, but Andrew didn't let him. 

"Andrew," said Aaron, always the voice of reason, always the smart one. "That's enough." 

And maybe it would be the smart thing to do, he could hear Nicky's sobbing through the thin veil of blood-boiling anger, he could hear Dan's voice, yelling Wymack's name, and it was the smart thing to do. 

So he tightened his grip, tightened it until he felt like the beating against his palms cut off, and Kevin's eyes were wet from tears that started falling who-knew-when.

"You'll talk," he said, and it was meant to sound menacing, but really, it were just words of a broken man. He let Kevin go, and Kevin fell to the ground like the strings keeping him upright snapped, leaving him drinking the air in desperate gasps. 

Everyone gathered around them to watch the spectacle, and it was Aaron who held them back. How, Andrew didn't know, and he didn't care, but if anyone tried to touch him at this moment, he would rip their hands off. 

Aaron wasn't looking at him, and Andrew didn't plan on being grateful, so they all fixed at Kevin, whose neck already carried the fingertips of Andrews fingers, marking him with nauseous red. He was coughing like a dying man, his hand tracing his throat with unsure movements, like he didn't believe Andrew would ever really turn on him like that. 

He swore to protect him, after all. 

The deal hang between them in the air, almost touchable with bare skin, but Andrew didn't break his end, no, not yet. He swore to protect him, and that involved himself as a threat. 

"I-," Kevin tried, and it sounded like he tasted the words for the first time in years; his throat swollen, and vocal cords strangled into temporary silence. 

"I can't." He had the balls to say it again, voice husky, but coloured by unhealthy determination. 

It was maybe the first time he stood his ground unyieldingly since fleeting from Riko, and Andrew would be amused with his liquid spine turned solid, if it wasn't Neil's life on the stakes. It wasn't the time for Kevin to play the hero – all the heroes ended fallen and forgotten. 

He would know; he watched Abram fall every damn time.

Andrew made a move to grab him by the throat again, and Kevin flinched hard, his head crashed loudly against the side of a seat. He looked around himself, with betrayal in his eyes, but he didn't have any allies here, he was alone in this. 

Nobody interfered.

There was some twisted feeling of victory in Andrew's chest, as Kevin banged his head another time, in defeated manner, looking somewhere above, like he was praying to whichever god one could believe in.

There was no god above – if there was, Andrew would make him pay centuries ago. 

Kevin closed his eyes, and a tear run across his cheek down, down, down, right across his tattoo, the remainder that he would never be the number one. Not even this time. 

He started talking.

* * *

They were in Baltimore, finally, and Andrew wondered once again how Abram managed to get himself into such scenarios. The mafia, Butcher of Baltimore. He might've even survived on the run, Millport being the hole it was, but he decided to trade his life for fucking stickball, and if that wasn't such an Abram thing to do, Andrew would laugh. 

Who would be stupid enough to sign with a team, where one of the few connections to your past were? 

Andrew didn't believe in regret, but he knew, he knew that it wasn't stupidity, it was him – the one who made Neil stay in one place. Once again, manoeuvring him a position of no return, without comprehending the situation in this wholeness, without understanding at all. 

He almost killed him.

He was never able to save him, and he was most of the times the reason why Abram died in the first place. 

_But not this time._

Andrew was handcuffed to Wymack, downgraded to moving the fucking bus, while he could've been inside with the others, seeing Neil on his own two eyes. There was a part of him, not a small part, that didn't believe that Neil managed to survive. It was not something he did – ever. 

They finally, finally, parked the stupid thing and Andrew all but dragged Wymack with him, trailing right after the Special Agent Idiot, who was supposed to have Neil and the way to him. 

He grew restless, and it reminded him of the time he spent on medication, with more energy than he could burn and head high in the clouds. 

"Where's And-"

He heard the words and barged into the room, because that was Neil, Neil, Abram, and he could hear his voice, and he was alive. 

The other agent in the room went right for his gun, and Andrew could almost feel the shot in his bones, but Neil, covered in white, white bandages everywhere, on his face, his stomach, his hands, grabbed the gun. 

He let go almost immediately with a pained sound, one that Andrew knew perfectly, but it bought him just enough time to get to him, and he wanted, he wanted to touch him. He wanted to know he was real. The hand he settled on the back of his neck was automatic, it always helped when Neil was losing himself in his past. It always helped Andrew to know he wasn't made of smoke.

He looked like a disaster personified. It appeared like the sole action of opening his eyes hurt at a bone-deep level, and his eyes were bright blue but unfocused. He still tried to straighten himself into something resembling standing position, and it was so clearly above his powers, that Andrew just pushed him down, and he went willingly, without a fight. 

He looked at his hands, like he expected to see blood on them, but there was nothing except the white, clean bandages, wrapped neatly around his palms, continuing up to his elbows and higher. 

Andrew saw him in worse states already, but most of them were just Abram's lifeless body, not with his soul in the meatsuit. It felt like a win, but he still didn't let himself believe. He couldn't. He centred himself on Neil's face, bandaged in a way that left only the imagination to decide what was hidden under them. How bad it really was. 

"They could've blinded you," said Neil, and this were the first words he said to him. "All that time fighting, and you never learned how to duck?" 

Neil was wrapped like a mummy, head to toe in what looked like half of the hospital's supplies, after hours of being missing, after he was kidnapped, tortured and interrogated. 

Andrew hated him. He hated him with a burning passion that was only countered with the desire to kiss him stupid, if Neil didn't look so fragile in the moment. 

He needed to know how big the damage was, how many scars were added to Neil's already sickeningly enormous collection. 

There was no good place to start, and it felt like unwrapping world's worst Christmas present, and Andrew's fingers were never careful, never soft, but they were now. He uncovered the cuts and stitches on Neil's right cheek, and Neil let him without protest, without a word. 

Knife. The wounds were shallow in some places, deep in others. There was no order to them, they weren't thoughtfully executed, it wasn't a knife led by steady hand. Andrew could ask about it later, so he went to the other side of Neil's face, where Neil's tattoo of number 4, the Japanese word for Death, was impressed into his skin. 

He had to use more force to pull the tape down this time, Neil's face twitching in pain, and Andrew knew he wouldn't encounter cuts this time. His expectations didn't prepare him for the reality; burned skin, blackened in perfect circles. There wasn't a trace left of his tattoo, only dead tissue in its place. 

The unorganized cuts on his other cheek suddenly started to make sense, and it wasn't a picture Andrew wanted to see, it wasn't something he wanted to imagine. His hand froze above the burns, where was live fire pressed to Neil's skin, and Neil wasn't looking at him.

Andrew forcibly willed his body to move, a strange, morbid fascination guiding his fingers to Neil's cheek, turning his head so the burns glistened in the artificial light. He saw the damage right before his eyes, but he also saw the people that did this to Neil. Someone pressed the fire into his face, burning it off, scarring, holding a knife to his other cheek as well. And Neil, alone and defeated, with no-one coming to save him, broken to shards.

But Abram was never defeated, was he? 

He was either dead or on top of his game, nothing in between, not scarred and burned, not tortured. He'd rather die than say what they wanted to hear, and he somehow came out of this alive. 

Andrew was one step away from murder, his vision red and bright blue, and he wanted to punch Neil in the face, for leaving him, for not telling him a damn thing. 

"I'm sorry."

He had the audacity to apologize for surviving, for coming back to Andrew, for the first time in his lives, for the first time ever, and Andrew could feel the hatred, the hatred swelling inside his chest. He almost took a swing, but he couldn't, he couldn't add to the damage. 

Neil looked like he would be okay with being punched in the face, and that only added to Andrew's anger, because he really thought, he really believed he deserved the pain. 

"Say it again and I'll kill you."

That was the moment when the idiotic agent decided to mingle into it, like he didn't see this was not his fucking problem, like he didn't know that Andrew was ready to slice his head off in the matter of seconds. 

He didn't know or didn't care, but Neil knew, because Abram always knew. He placed his bandaged hands, those hands that could've been burnt or cut or wounded in any way possible, and placed them on the sides of Andrew's face, incredibly softly. Andrew recognized that look on his face – it was the same one that appeared when Neil dragged people trough mud. 

It was Neil's battle, first and foremost. Besides, his hands were caressing, and Andrew could feel the comfortable weight of his mere existence, so he settled for watching the train wreck. 

Neil went on, pushed all the right buttons, like he always did, showing that the fight inside him didn't falter for a moment. He was not an empty box for tortured soul, he was still shining bright, shining after all that'd happened to him. 

He was alive, his voice was strong, and his hands were warm against Andrew's cheeks. 

Andrew himself was alive too.

* * *

Andrew could never save Abram. But now he knew it wasn't because Abram couldn't be saved. Their lives were intertwined as tight as their hands were, holding onto each other. Andrew couldn't save Abram but maybe, just maybe, one life out of twenty-two, Abram was able to save himself.

It was cold on the rooftop, the freezing wind grating against Andrew's bared face. It was alright, because his mouth still burned with the echo of Neil's lips, and his soul bathed in the warmth of his soft smile – the one that could be sharp like glass if he wanted.

Neil smiled at him, like he often did, like Andrew was an answer for him, and he just might've been in this moment. It was Neil, Neil, Abram, and he looked at him not with recognition but with fondness, like he knew somewhere inside him that their souls looked for their match for centuries. 

Abram's promise not to run put a comfortable weight on Andrew's chest instead of the stone he carried with himself since the ancient gods were praised. Abram was here. Burned and scarred, inked and marked, warm and alive. 

Maybe Aaron was right, and Andrew didn't deserve to have his own happy ending. But with the arm with matching black armbands wrapped around his shoulders – it was easier to hope, to allow himself to want something.

* * *

Andrej saw the blue, blue eyes on the last possible minute and managed to shoot Neil in his arm instead of his heart with a desperation overtaking over his brain.

It was Neil, Neil, Neil, clutching his shoulder, his body hitting the floor hard. Andrej was at his side in a heartbeat, pulling off his helmet, looking at the oh so familiar face. His fingers itched to touch the face he knew, now with a birthmark under his eye, right where the number four has been a few lives before. 

Neil tried to fight him, he struggled, stabbed Andrej in the thigh with a small dagger, as Andrej systematically rolled him out of there, anywhere safe. They were enemies in this life, like so many times before, but Andrej couldn't let it stop him, couldn't leave him here, in the middle of the battle. 

He clenched his jaw, the pain not enough to stop him from his goal. 

Neil stopped struggling and examined Andrej with clever eyes, blue as the sky. 

"Do I know you?"

The question was something Andrej never hoped to hear, although he imagined it every time Áron met Kateřina, every time Nikolas met Erik, every time he spent a life looking for his own soulmate. 

He stopped in his tracks, hiding them both in a dark corner of filthy alleyway, protecting Neil from the world with his body. 

"No," he answered, tasting blood and hope on his lips. "Not yet."

* * *

Abram never remembered his lives, and Andrew could never save Abram. 

But Neil, maybe Neil could save himself, and Andrew could remember their pasts for both of them.

At the end of the day, they were locked in a vicious cycle of lives.

**Author's Note:**

> _At the end of the day, they had an eternity together._
> 
> This was an idea that wouldn't let me sleep till I wrote it. I hope you've enjoyed it!   
> Have a nice day! Or night. Or anything in between <3


End file.
